Chicken Raid Blues and Roots Festival Coming to Northside Tavern

February 22nd, 2016

The Chicken Raid, an annual two-day blues festival and benefit honoring the late Atlanta country blues musician Frank Edwards, will return to its familiar digs at Atlanta blues dive the Northside Tavern on Saturday and Sunday, March 18th and 19th.

The event basically doubles as a showcase for some of the best blues and roots acts in Georgia, as most of the participants hail from the state. Atlanta’s Mudcat (the festival’s organizers), Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, Eddie Tigner, Roy Lee Johnson, Jontavious Willis, Albert White, Macon’s Robert Lee Coleman and Perry, Georgia’s Essie Mae Brooks are among this year’s Georgia-based highlights. Guitarist Cool John Ferguson and blues harpist Freddie Vanderford will be wheeling in from South Carolina for the fest as well.

Music will begin at 2 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday, with a full 12 hours of music per day. Tickets will be available at the door for $15 Saturday and $10 Sunday. Danny Dudeck (in the cap in this old photo, alongside Edwards), the longtime anchor of Mudcat, emphasizes that “except for the occasional gas stipend for out of town performers who donate their talents, all door money goes to the oldest living generation of performers, our mentors. Over the past few years we’ve been blessed to find so many of these legacy artists in our region who’ve become regular names on the bill. For some of these artists, this is a rare, but annual, occasion to perform for fair compensation.